Yoku’s Island Express

Games
1

This got a little bit of attention in the both the Switch thread and the Little Indie Games Worth Knowing About (Probably) thread:

I’ve been playing it for a while and I agree with @LMN8R, don’t overlook this one. So I figured it deserved its own thread for visibility.

In reading about it, I realized there have been a handful of “pinball platformers” in the past, but I don’t think I’ve ever tried one, so the concept of a pinball kind of metroidvania is novel to me.

I’m 40% complete on the Switch version, and I’m really digging it, though it’s not quite what I expected. I see why it gets compared to metroidvanias, there’s a lot of open world traversal gated by things you need to return to later with new abilities, but so far there’s never any combat or conflict in the exploration. You’re either wandering and exploring, or you’re bouncing around chutes and tunnels and bumpers in the more straightforward pinball areas—typically trying to collect enough doo-dads to unlock another corridor to explore.

You’re moving seamlessly in the world between the normal areas and the little pinball areas, controlling the ball directly (you’re a little dung beetle postman riding and pushing a ball around) and via flippers in the environment in both situations, though the flippers are doing almost all the work in the pinball sections.

I don’t know if I would recommend it to someone who wants an actual pinball game, because in what I’ve played so far, the pinball areas aren’t very complex (compared to my limited experience with some Zen pinball tables), and there’s no element of scoring at all. I doubt this is going to be Tom’s cup of tea.

And outside of the pinball sections, it’s a weird, relaxing little game that in the first hour or two walked just up to the edge of the line that separates “chill” from “boring”, but it’s won me over. I spent at least an hour more than I intended to playing it last night, promising I was going to stop just as soon as I delivered the next package or arrived at the next objective, only to be drawn a little further to see what was next.

If you’re curious about it, I hope you take a chance on it.

2

My Switch is currently just out of my reach, but I’m marking this thread as a reminder to myself to check this game out the instant I’m not feeling so shiftless.

3

I’m only ~45-60 minutes in, but the title card that pops up around 20-30 minutes is so perfectly goofy and well-timed. I love details like that.

There’s also some weird stuff which begins to happen a bit further in - I hope there’s a lot of secret stuff going on instead of just these random teases which ultimately go nowhere!

4

Cross post from wallet thread:

5

I’m getting pretty far into the game now and have most of the map uncovered. Still so enjoyable to play!

It definitely has an Ori and the Blind Forest vibe in terms of its look and art style, and the entire world is designed in such a clever way.

This game has absolutely no right to be as good as it is!

7

After hearing Giantbomb’s extremely positive impressions, I picked this up Yoku’s Island Express for Switch earlier today before I saw this thread, which probably would’ve convinced me to buy the game, too. I can’t wait to play it this evening.

8

Hope you enjoy it as much as I have. I need to get back to it, haven’t played in over a week, but there’s been a lot of family stuff, etc going on.

9

Thanks, Misguided! I think it looks like it’ll be something I’ll really enjoy. The trailer looked outrageously charming. If you’re still thinking about a game when you’re busy, that’s usually a great sign. I hope things slow down a bit and you can continue having fun soon.

10

The end is sorta abrupt, but overall I love this game. Just a totally relaxing, chilled out experience.

11

The Video Games Hot Dog podcast was split 2/2 on this game, and then it became clear that the two who liked it played on a TV and the two who didn’t played on the Switch screen. Did any of you find that playing on the small screen was problematic?

12

I played it entirely handheld and it never bothered me. What didn’t they like about that mode?

13

I’ve been playing in handheld mode on the Switch up until you (get the toolbox) but I haven’t had any problems with readability during the immediate gameplay experience. I love the game. My only issues are that sometimes I can’t get the timing down so I get stuck in a loop from hitting the flippers too early and I wish the map and telescope had a middle-zoom option for fine-tuning a route.

14

I played mostly on TV but 1-2 hours in handheld and had no trouble either way.

15

It plays great in tabletop mode. I “finished” the other day, but still have lots of stuff to do.

16

It seemed like they missed stuff in the UI, and I think they mentioned the telescope not being at a useful scale.

17

Now that I’ve finished the story and I’m actively hunting for wickerlings and treasure I missed, I do see the frustration with the map on the Switch screen. Zoomed out is too tiny to easily see them on the map, zoomed in includes enough of the background art that the icons get lost against it.

Never had trouble with the big objectives during the game, but yeah, this could’ve used a little tweaking for handheld.

18

The other thing I’ve noticed is that icons aren’t accurate beyond a certain distance, meaning you might see a mailbox that appears you haven’t used it, but once you get close the icon changes. Maybe I’ve imagined this.

19

Nope, saw that for myself last night too.

20

That’s something it would be nice for them to address. The best use of the map is to look for stuff you’ve missed, and to have it not be accurate is an annoyance.

21

For me I had a lot of fun with the game, but now that I completed the story I’m not too interested in collecting the rest of the stuff. Maybe the map issues is why, thinking about it now.